Dynamic Opinions and Views

Posts Tagged ‘Media’

It hasn’t been 100 days, or 100 years, or even 100 victories.

But each one has been a victory even though it’s not tied to seasons, or sobriety, or jail time. It’s not historical or record breaking, but each is painstakenly researched, often prescient, generally significant, and usually relevant.

This article has just been posted on The Huffington Post. To view it at Huff Post click on the link.

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After each debate, focus groups created more questions than answers!

Television has gravitated to the use of focus groups — gatherings of undecided or uncommitted voters — as a tool to evaluate the candidates’ performance in the debates.

With a straight face the sober moderator asks them who they think won the debate, who they’ll vote for, and other questions about the performance of each candidate then, asks follow up questions to clarify their answers.

Media conglomerates are destroying American democracy!

Giant media corporations have altered the concept of a ‘Free Press.’ Their failure to uphold the tenets of the 4th estate is contributing to the erosion of our precious democracy.

The problem lies in ownership, or lack thereof.

We, ‘the people,’ no longer own the airwaves having allowed Congress to sell that freedom to profit hungry media groups—inextricably obligated to their investors—creating a press that is no longer free, and, in many cases, conspiratorial in the attempts to tear down democracy.

Both weakness and bias in the media have been obvious for a considerable time but no one wants to attack it straight on!

Have we abandoned the search for truth—bowing to the hunt for profits?

This article was posted on The Huffington Post on Tuesday, Jan 25. click on link to read it on HuffPost.

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There was a deafening silence across the land, then a rising cacophony!

In a sudden and bold move on Friday night MSNBC delivered a big blow to free speech. Within seconds of the end of Countdown the internet was atwitter with news of Keith Olbermann’s sudden curtain call at MSNBC.

The news surprised Countdown’s audience and shocked the media.

There have been many stories written since the Friday night announcement; attempts to explain possible reasons for Olbermann’s departure. They included his recent suspension, his stormy relationship with NBC management, the merger with Comcast, and his liberal voice.

None of it will become clear until the termination of any non-disclosure agreements between Keith and MSNBC.

Olbermann had become the voice for liberal media—the counter balance to the bias of Fox and NewsCorp.

Vilified by the right for his passionate liberal views, his popularity with progressives became the model for MSNBC’s prime time line-up. That popularity helped bring voices like Maddow, Schultz, O’Donnell, and Ratigan to the public.

Olbermann’s Countdown was gaining market share in the same time slot as Fox’s Bill O’Reilly, and with it came more vitriolic attacks from fans of Fox. On the Thursday before Friday’s announcement Countdown attracted over 1.1 million viewers. He aggressively called out Fox hosts for their lies and hypocrisy which in turn drew accusations of hypocrisy, and lies from his detractors.

Those attacks were unfounded given the fact-based reporting on Countdown, a model that is evident throughout the MSNBC line-up and generally non-existent on the comparable shows on Fox. There seems to be no interest in presenting information based in fact at Fox and the chastised main stream media is reluctant to point that out.